Emotional Composition
The exercise today on Romance Divas in their author of the month workshop with USA Today Bestselling Author C. L. Wilson is to take a scene we’ve already written and revise it so that it has a completely different tone. I’ve been thinking about which scene to use and am coming up with a blank, but that’s what inspired the comedy/tragedy masks today. They also fit with the recent emotional ideas and themes I’ve been looking at recently.
You’ll be glad to know I’m finish reading Dunne’s Emotional Structure! However, I’m not quite done thinking about or talking about all the strings and connections that I’m going to need to figure out how to seamlessly manipulate in my writing to move forward with what should be character-driven romance stories.
I realized this morning I’m freaking myself out and making writing those three sentences harder than necessary. I need to cultivate better habits regarding how I come up with and save ideas. I have a bunch of loose notes that are mostly character sketches and my story ideas are even rougher even if they may include several thousand words worth of “notes”.
It’s scary to admit, but it’s true. Mistress of the Storm is nothing but notes really, the same with Beneath His Touch – both are pretty much just opening sketches. What became Revealed started with much fewer notes, but, again, an opening sketch. I liked how Dunne compared the process to an artist’s sketch. You start with gesturals and move to more detailed sketches to make sure you’ve balanced your composition. I’ve done a lot of opening gesturals, but unfortunately, I only focused on one corner and never really took a necessary step back to look at the big picture.
I need to buckle down and work on coming up with complete ideas that go from beginning to middle to ending. I plan to practice this by setting aside time to brainstorm ideas and polishing them to that three-sentence stage. Later, I can take those and work them up to three pages. I want to acquire the habit of thinking bigger than just character sketches or laying groundwork for the conflicts between the main characters.
I admire novel writers of all kinds – its a huge structure to build. You’re doing great!
yeah–it is a big structure. It’s why so many people do short stories. Not that they’re easier, but they are a more condensed version.
It helps to look at it as a bunch of puzzle pieces. A lot of times your backbrain is working overtime, telling you all the interconnecting threads. You just need to lay it all out, look hard–and see where you might have missed a few. And I can’t stress the importance of logic.
If your heroine does something, it has reprecussions. If your hero does something, it ripples too. If your heroine is afraid to get out in public, then it means that she’s going to have physchal reactions when she does, and that means, people will notice and that means…on and on, see?
Good luck.
As usual, love the post.
I also love what Jodi said about reprecussions. I think with the characters I’m writing now, I know them so well that it’s as much reaction I’m writing. Like knowing if I call a close friend and tell her something – generally I have an idea of how she’s going to react.
Even so, just like with my friends, sometimes my characters surprise me!